Oleg half suspected that Truvor had turned him simply to regain control, because once a vampire sired a child, that child would always be at least a little bit in thrall to their maker.
But though Truvor had given Oleg blood saturated in the soil of the Kievan Rus, the vampire who was born came to immortal life as a creature of fire.
From the moment of Oleg’s immortal birth, Truvor’s laughter had died.
Eventually Truvor died too.
As Oleg stepped over the threshold of the warehouse, the scent of his brother’s blood filled the air.
Truvor’s blood. Ivan’s blood.
It was all the same; his brother’s children carried the stench of their sire.
“Here they are.” Yeva spoke through the black mask that covered half her face. “Only seven left.”
Oleg saw the bodies on the ground, a few with heads detached from their bodies. Those would be the vampires.
Others were human, and a few were still moving. The seven left standing had their hands zip-tied behind them and were lined up along a chain-link partition near a small office.
The scent of vodka lingered in the air, and broken glasses and bottles littered the concrete floor. The men had been enjoying a drink before Yeva’s people invaded their celebration.
“Should we kill them?” Yeva asked.
“Not right now.” Oleg kept his voice low as his boots crunched over shattered glass.
Yeva had told her men that Oleg was one of Mika Arakis’s informants from Riga, coming to survey the operation so close to Mika’s border. All of them, including Oleg, were wearing masks.
It didn’t serve Oleg’s current purposes for the humans or vampires guarding this warehouse to know who was holding them at gunpoint and knifepoint.
All he needed them to do was watch as, one after another, Yeva’s people drove loaded cargo trucks out of the warehouse and into the night, depriving Ivan and his sons of millions of euros as their precious electronics disappeared.
One of the humans lunged toward Yeva, but she lifted the butt of her rifle and knocked him on the temple. The human crumpled, and another of the men cried out.
The language wasn’t Russian.
Oleg walked over, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and stood before the man who had cried out. “Who are you?”
The man lifted his chin and spat out, “None of your damn business!” He spoke Russian, but the accent wasn’t local.
But Oleg recognized it.
He walked back to where Yeva was standing and watching the last truck roll out of the warehouse. “Where were these trucks coming from?”
The trucks might have been sitting in Ivan’s warehouse, being guarded by Ivan’s men, but Oleg had a feeling that the man he’d just spoken to wasn’t one of Ivan’s.
He had a feeling the man was a driver. A contractor.
Yeva looked at a clipboard one of her people had handed her. “They’re coming from…” She looked up at Oleg. “Poland.”
“Hmm.”
“Is there a prob?—”
“We’ll talk later,” he murmured.
Shit.
“Are we finished?” he asked.
